Why the TSA's procedures are flawed (from a former MD asst. police chief)

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Joshua Weinberg <joshua () DLifegroup com>
Date: December 1, 2009 1:51:15 PM EST
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Why the TSA's procedures are flawed (from a former MD asst. police chief) 

Dave, for IP if you wish...

Discovered via Stupid Security Blog http://www.stupidsecurity.com/

http://www.hlswatch.com/2009/10/15/%E2%80%9Cdo-i-have-the-right-to-refuse-this-search%E2%80%9D/

“Do I have the right to refuse this search?”

(Today’s guest author is Deirdre Walker.  She retired recently as the Assistant Chief of the Montgomery County, 
Maryland, Department of Police.  She spent 24 years as a police officer.)

“Do I have the right to refuse this search?”

This is a question I heard many times during my law enforcement career.  Often my answer was no.  But occasionally it 
would be “yes,” followed by an admonition to have a good day.

For the last half of my career, I would have documented each interaction, whether or not it involved an arrest.  I 
would have written down the nature and length of the interaction, the gender, race, and age of the person, and the 
outcome of the contact (arrest, citation, etc.).

I carry the baggage of this history with me as I’ve traveled over the last eight years, mindlessly placing my luggage 
on the conveyer belt and removing my shoes for TSA inspection.

Recently, something changed.

Within the last few months, I have been singled out for “additional screening” roughly half the time I step into an 
airport security line.  On Friday, October 9, as I stepped out of the full-body scanning device at BWI, I decided I 
needed more information to identify why it is that I have become such an appealing candidate for secondary screening.

Little did I know this would be only the first of many questions I now have regarding my airport experiences.

Over these last few months, I have grown increasingly frustrated with what I view as an unjustifiable intrusion on my 
privacy.   It was not so much the search (then) as it was the embarrassment of being singled out, effectively being 
told “You are different,” but getting no explanation as to why.

That frustration has been tempered by a combination of my desire to be a good citizen, and my empathy for the TSA 
screeners.  These folks, after all, are merely doing what we, the American traveling public, have permitted and now 
expect them to do.

I am left to wonder whether my own passive acceptance of these evolving search procedures has contributed to a 
potentially fatal dichotomy:  what we allow TSA screeners to do in order to maximize efficiency and enhance our 
perception of safety, or what we really need them to do in order to preserve our rights and dignity and enhance our 
actual safety.

We have asked TSA to find the tools terrorists use and prevent both from boarding a passenger plane.  We have 
unintentionally created an agency that now seeks efficiency and compliance more than any weapon or explosive.

While returning my computer and shoes to their proper places, I watched the screening line at BWI.  I thought about the 
haphazard events surrounding the security screening process.  As I watched the screening officers, I wondered what 
information drives their decisions.  Left only to my observations, I concluded that their decisions were entirely 
random, and likely based upon three criteria:  passenger load, staffing, and whim.

I was left to conclude that I am not screened because I look like a terrorist. I am routinely screened because I look 
like someone who will readily comply.  I decided then that my next invitation to enjoy additional screening would be 
met with more inquiry.

I did not have wait very long.  On my return through Albany to BWI — Surprise! –  I got “randomly selected” for 
additional screening.

This time, I was “invited” to step into one of the explosive detection machines, commonly referred to as a “puffer 
machine.”  The traveller is exposed to short, intense bursts of air, which are then, supposedly, analyzed for trace 
residue.

I read an article awhile ago that suggested these machines are entirely ineffective.   I have subsequently observed 
that they now sit idle at many airports where they were originally installed (Tampa International, for example).  In 
recently renovated airports (San Jose) they have not been installed.  At some other airports (like BWI), they have been 
replaced by the body-scanning technology.

When notified by the cheerful screener that I had been selected for additional screening (the screener’s tone reminded 
my of the announcer who tells the contestant that she has just won a TV on the Price is Right), I stepped reluctantly 
toward the machine and asked her quietly whether I had the right to refuse the search.  I did not want to become a 
spectacle, or have to rent a car and drive back to Maryland.

The screeners face dropped and she appeared stunned, as if my question had been received like a body-blow.   She asked 
me to repeat what I said, and I repeated my inquiry regarding whether or not I had the right to refuse this search, 
especially since it was my understanding that the equipment did not work.  She responded defensively, “It sounds an 
alarm!”

What followed is what I can only describe as a process that left me with more questions and a hunger for something we 
need and something that has apparently been missing from TSA procedures since September 12, 2001: Data.

It is, again, important to note my general respect for the front line TSA screeners — with the exception of those 
screeners who feel that it is necessary to yell at people.  In my experience as a cop, as a supervisor and as a 
manager, I know that yelling at people is the one method guaranteed to ensure sub-par performance and a collapse of any 
semblance of cooperation.

My motivation to write this piece is first, to vent, but then to take a stab at the windmill that has grown from flawed 
processes to become a barrier to achieving the real mission and ultimate goal:  Passenger safety.

I believe, fundamentally, that our collective compliance with the current screening procedures has served only to 
undermine TSA, and has denied our screeners the tools they need to correct their course.

After realizing I was serious about refusing to step into the puffer machine, I was told that I would be subjected to a 
“full-body pat-down” and that all of my “stuff would be fully searched.”

I shrugged and waited while the screeners figured out what to do next.  One of the screeners said “Who is the 
supervisor?  Notify a supervisor.”  I waited two to three minutes with two female screeners.  I was then approached by 
a uniformed screener and the following exchange took place.

“She refused the puffer.  We are supposed to notify a supervisor.  You’re a supervisor, right?”

Apparently reminded of his role, the subordinate screener then said “We’re notifying you.”  She said nothing further.   
The supervisor then informed me that if I did not step into the “puffer” I would be subjected to a full body-pat-down, 
that I would be “wanded” and that all of my belongings would be fully searched by hand.

By this time, my belongings had already passed through the x-ray and sat oddly unattended on the belt.  They had 
aroused no suspicion, either as they passed through the x-ray or as they sat completely unattended.  I thought it odd 
that my initial refusal to be subjected to the ‘puffer’ now rendered the x-ray examination effectively flawed.  I was 
being cajoled and was then offered the opportunity to change my mind, which, again, I thought rather odd.  If I posed 
such a risk by refusing the secondary screening, why would that risk be now mitigated, if only I were to change my mind?

I did not change my mind.  So, I stepped between two glass walls and was subjected to what my police training would 
allow me to conclude was a procedural vacuum.

I had been told repeatedly I would be subjected to a “pat-down.”  I correctly suspected otherwise.  During the course 
of my police career, I have conducted many pat-downs on the street.  The Supreme Court has described pat downs as a 
cursory check of the outer clothing of a person by a police officer, upon articulable suspicion that the officer’s 
safety is at risk of being compromised.  My department’s procedure indicated that this pat-down was to be conducted 
with an open hand, gently patting the outer clothing of an individual, for purposes of officer safety only, with the 
goal of detecting weapons.  In other words, it is not a search.

What happened to me in Albany was not the promised “pat-down.”  It was a full search conducted in full public view.  It 
was also one of the most flawed searches I have ever witnessed.

> From the outset, it was very clear that the screener would have preferred to be anywhere else.  She acted as if she 
> was afraid of me, though given that I had set myself apart as apparently crazy, perhaps I cannot blame her.  With 
> rubber-gloved hands she checked my head, my arms, my legs, my buttocks (and discovered a pen that had fallen into one 
> of my pockets) and even the bottom of my feet.  Perhaps in a nod to decorum, she did not check my crotch, my armpits 
> or either breast area.

Here was a big problem:  an effective search cannot nod to decorum.

These three areas on a woman, and the crotch area of men, offer the greatest opportunity to seclude weapons and 
contraband.   Bad guys and girls rely on the type of reluctance displayed by this screener to get weapons and drugs 
past the authorities.  We train cops to realize that their life depends upon the ability to compartmentalize any 
apprehension about the need to lift and separate.  Fatal consequences can and do result when officers fail to detect a 
secreted weapon which is later used against them.

At the Albany airport,  I was left to wonder what kind of training the screener received. I was forced to conclude the 
answer might be “none.”  At a minimum, she needs re-training, assuming there is any policy or training that governs 
searches.  Further, after being repeatedly informed that I would be “wanded” by the metal detector in addition to the 
‘pat-down,’ I was not.

Had I actually intended to move contraband past the screening point, my best strategy would have been to refuse 
secondary screening.

I am also forced to conclude that the purpose of the “pat-down” was not to actually interdict contraband.    In my 
case, I believe I was subjected to a haphazard response in order to effectively punish me for refusing secondary 
screening and to encourage a different decision in the future.

All of this is admittedly subjective, based on my perceptions at the time.  What is also entirely subjective is 
identifying which travelers are selected for secondary screening.

This is where I find myself now obsessing over TSA policy, or its apparent lack.  Every one of us goes to work each day 
harboring prejudice.  This is simply human nature.  What I have witnessed in law enforcement over the course of the 
last two decades serves to remind me how active and passive prejudice can undermine public trust in important 
institutions, like police agencies.  And TSA.

Over the last fifteen years or so, many police agencies started capturing data on police interactions.  The primary 
purpose was to document what had historically been undocumented: informal street contacts.  By capturing specific data, 
we were able to ask ourselves tough questions about potentially biased-policing.  Many agencies are still struggling 
with the answers to those questions.

Regardless, the data permitted us to detect problematic patterns, commonly referred to as passive discrimination.  This 
is a type of discrimination that occurs when we are not aware of how our own biases affect our decisions.  This kind of 
bias must be called to our attention, and there must be accountability to correct it.

One of the most troubling observations I made, at both Albany and BWI, was that — aside from the likely notation in a 
log (that no one will ever look at) — there was no information captured and I was asked no questions, aside from 
whether or not I wanted to change my mind.

Given that TSA interacts with tens if not hundreds of millions of travelers each year, it is incredible to me that we, 
the stewards of homeland security,  have failed to insist that data capturing and analysis should occur in a manner 
similar to what local police agencies have been doing for many years.

Some might argue that the potential for intrusion is not the same between police and TSA.  I believe my experience this 
past weekend demonstrates otherwise.   Currently, there is no way to know whether a certain male screener routinely 
identifies predominantly women for additional screening.  There is no way to identify whether a Latino screener 
routinely isolates African-Americans, or vice versa.  To assert that the screeners are highly trained and do not 
engaged in this type of discrimination, whether passive or active, is unsupportable because there is no data.  You 
simply cannot solve problems that you do not want to identify.

Finally, I am most concerned about the “random” nature of my repeated selection for secondary screening.  If there is 
no discrimination at work, and my selection is entirely random, then we have yet another, and probably more significant 
problem.

For years in policing, we relied on random patrols to curb crime.  We relied upon this “strategy” until someone went 
out and captured some data, and did a study that demonstrated conclusively that random patrols do not work (Kansas City 
Study).

As police have employed other types of “random” interventions, as in DWI checkpoints, they have had to develop 
policies, procedures and training to ensure that the “random” nature of these intrusions is truly random.  Whether 
every car gets checked, or every tenth car, police must demonstrate that they have attempted to eliminate the effects 
of active and passive discrimination when using “random” strategies.  No such accountability currently exists at TSA.

As I left the screening check point in Albany,  I looked over a few feet and observed an elderly Asian couple talking 
to “my” supervisor.  I unashamedly eavesdropped.

I heard the man say that his wife had not been told that the machine would blow air and that she had been quite 
startled.  The woman said she should have been informed and the supervisor agreed. He said he would speak to the 
screener (but again, who knows whether he actually did).

Then the  man said “And she should have been told she can refuse.”  The bells in my head were deafening.

I believe what we have here is the beginning of the end of complacency.  It is now apparent to me that in the haste to 
ensure compliance with procedures that are inconsistent if not inarticulable, TSA has hastened the likelihood of 
failure.  If we do not insist that TSA work to create articulable policies that make sense, procedures that are 
explicit and consistent and training that supports both, then we are complicit in what will inevitably be an ultimate 
compromise of TSA.

That compromise may come in the form of terrorist attack, or it may come in the form of a collapse of public support.  
Either or both are inevitable. Either or both are preventable.
---
 The Digital Life Consulting Group
   Advising companies from product concept to launch
     www.DLifegroup.com

     Blog: www.launchlessons.com

 Joshua Weinberg
 (415) 777-3339 Phone
 (415) 816-4444 Cell
 joshua () DLifegroup com











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